TRG hopes for home-field magic on Sonoma's road

SONOMA, Calif. -- When this weekend of racing is over at Infineon Raceway, Kevin Buckler hopes he can raise his wine glass and propose a toast to himself and TRG Motorsports.

This Sunday's Toyota/SaveMart 350 Sprint Cup race at Infineon is a home game for TRG, and the hood on driver David Gilliland's No. 71 Chevrolet reflects that. The car's primary sponsor this weekend is Adobe Wineries, which also is owned by Buckler and is located nearby in Petaluma, Calif., in the heart of California's Napa Valley wine country.

David Gilliland

Season Statistics

Race	Start	Finish
Fontana	32	33
Las Vegas	30	14
Atlanta	31	24
Bristol	14	36
Martinsville	35	36
Texas	30	29
Phoenix	27	33
Talladega	26	40
Richmond	34	39
Darlington	30	43
Charlotte	29	27
Dover	24	43
Pocono	38	42
Michigan	35	32

Gilliland qualified 32nd Friday, turning a lap at 91.850 mph at the tricky road course.

Although the team enters Sunday's event only 37th in owners' points, a finish similar to the one Gilliland fashioned at the track last year when he was driving for Yates Racing could do wonders for them. Gilliland finished a career-high second then.

The team's goal, of course, is to eventually get inside the top 35 in points so they will automatically qualify for the next Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire. That goal became at least reachable Friday when Gilliland qualified quicker than John Andretti, who is 35th in points and will start 42nd in the 43-car field -- and Scott Speed, who was 36th in owner points, overdrove his car and ran off the track in qualifying, failing to make the field.

Gilliland enters Sunday's event 161 points behind Andretti and 108 behind Speed in the all-important owners' point standings that determine the 35 cars who are guaranteed starting positions for the next race.

Gilliland, Buckler and the rest of the TRG team might not know how to act if they actually crack the top 35. Since failing to qualify for the season-opening Daytona 500 when veteran driver Mike Wallace, not Gilliland, was behind the wheel, the TRG team has been forced to qualify on speed at every race -- and did so for the 15th consecutive event Friday.

The team has surprised even Buckler, seemingly the eternal optimist.

"We have surprised ourselves," Buckler said Friday. "And for that, I give all the credit to David and [crew chief] Slugger [Labbe]. We put a good piece under them and they drive the wheels off it. So we have surprised ourselves a little bit. I always set the bar pretty high. Sometimes I don't even talk about where the bar is set, because you hate eating any crow. But everyone has a goal -- and our goal was to make as many races as we could.

"Making it all the way here to Infineon [without missing a race], knowing we've got a pretty good shot at doing reasonably well this weekend, yeah, we're pretty surprised by that. But not enough to think about it so much that we don't just put our heads down and get ready to race." (Continued)